Wireless network resources may include multiple frequency bands for carrying wireless communication signals. The frequency bands may depend on different access node technologies, or may be sub-groups of a larger frequency band on which a particular radio access technology is configured to operate. The frequency bands may be defined by an approximate center frequency, and the band may cover frequencies within a specific spectrum surrounding the approximate center frequency.
A wireless device in a wireless network may be capable of establishing a wireless connection with each of two or more cells, each cell belonging to a different frequency band. Initially, a wireless device may detect a system information signal from each cell. If the system information signal for each cell is above a threshold signal level for that cell, the wireless device may attempt to connect to at least one cell in each of at least two different frequency bands in order to establish a default control channel on the two or more cells. Once wireless communication is established, these two or more cells may transmit and receive information such as application requirements of the wireless device and network characteristics of each of the cells, or of neighboring access nodes. The default control channel on each of the two or more cells may be used to prepare network resources on each cell by allocating a dedicated channel for services requested by the wireless device. The application requirements may be used to select a suitable dedicated channel.
Overview
Systems and methods are described for allocating resources between frequency bands in a wireless network. A wireless device may identify that there are a plurality of cells associated with different frequency bands. Accordingly, the wireless device may establish wireless communication with a first default channel of a first cell associated with a first frequency band and with a second default channel of a second cell associated with a second frequency band to communicate control signals between the first and second cells and the wireless device.
Application requirements for the wireless device may be determined by the cells or by another network node. Each of the first and second cells may assign a dedicated channel to bear data for the services required by an application of the wireless device. When the application requirements are determined, either of the first or second dedicated channels may be selected to provide service based on the determined application requirements.